Third generation farmer Jason Mack was born into farming.
His grandfather Leo Mack started small back in the days. The farm located in the Lampman area was passed from fathers to sons. Macks were growing through years, and at some point the family was working more than 7,000 acres of land.
“My parents have farmed for years. My grandpa started the family farm years and years ago. And dad eventually bought it from him when they (grandparents) passed away. And then we just got into it; it’s probably been about 15 years now that we started farming ourselves. But it’s always been around the farm. I’ve always lived at the farm, and it’s just been in my blood,” he said.
The decision to take over the father’s farm was natural.
“When we started dad was trying to figure out what he was going to do. And we were just getting out of school, and getting our families and stuff like that. And we just decided that we were going to get into it and go from there,” Jason said.
Jason remembers his grandparents as hard workers. Leo was his first farming teacher. With a little bit of land and some equipment back then the entire family had to farm to keep the operation going.
“I was fairly young when my grandpa was still farming. We didn’t have a whole lot of land and it was really small equipment, but I learned how to combine when I was probably 10. I learned how to cultivate. And I learned how to run the tractor when I was 10-11,” Jason remembers.
As it often happens in farming, in the Mack family the knowledge was passed down to kids through work, participation and personal examples, not through books or classes. Jason’s father Larry was the one who taught him the most he knows.
“Basically dad was my main teacher. I followed dad around quite a bit. Mom always laughed. Every time dad walked out the door I was right behind him. We’ve spent a lot of time riding in the tractors, riding around in the combines when we were kids. That’s how we learned and I carried that over with my kids too. Every chance I got my kids they were out there with me,” Jason said.
Jason’s father is semi-retired from farming, so now it’s about Jason, his brother Kevin and their kids.
“My youngest boy, he spends a lot of time out here at seeding time and a lot of time at harvest time. These are the busiest times of the year. And my daughter spends a lot of time at harvest time,” Jason said.
Brenden, Jason’s youngest son, is his main help nowadays, and daughter Linnea is also getting more and more into farming.
“She actually runs the grain cart for us, she also helps quite a bit. This is the first year that she ran it by herself. She drives around, gets it loaded and somebody in the truck comes and unloads it for her,” Jason said.
Mack hopes next year Linnea will be able to run the grain cart all by herself.
The Mack family is now down to 26 quarters of land from 48, which they were operating prior to Larry Mack’s retirement. And even with bigger and newer equipment, it still takes the entire family to put the seed in the ground and then to get the crop into bins.
“My wife, I get her out there once in a while, she would run the combine. My brother’s wife was running a combine for a little bit for us for a year or two there,” Jason said.
Having spouses and kids out in the field helps families to get some time together.
“We are trying to get them out there as much as we can, it helps out being gone for hours of the day. You don’t see them very often,” Jason said.
Family farming is a business that helps to put bread on the table. Despite huge progress in technology and equipment it still takes long hours, days and months of hard work and it remains a very challenging business.
“Commodity prices are really a hard thing to swallow right now. We are still getting prices for our crops that are based on 1970s prices. Back then you could buy a piece of equipment for a quarter of the price of what it costs right now on that same price that you would get for your crop. The prices that we are getting for our products aren’t coming up compared to what we have to use on the equipment, and land and stuff like that. So it’s a challenge to make ends meet with prices that we get for the product,” Jason said.
Yet, unlike his grandfather’s times, nowadays running a crop only farm Jason has a full-time job as a dragline operator at the coalmines. But being a farmer since his first days, he believes that farming is not just a business.
“There is no better life,as far as I’m concerned. I loved it on the farm. I still love it on the farm. It’s a good lifestyle. (It’s) peaceful as heaven. Basically, it’s quiet. You don’t have anybody bothering you. You go out there. You’ve got a lot of time to think. It’s very peaceful. It’s a rewarding job. You get your crop off at harvest time and you get to see what you’ve put the work in to. It’s very rewarding,” Jason shared.
